Josef K.’s efforts to discover why he is accused and must suffer are in vain. Yet, his character and his sins are conventional, and he has no bold or threatening ambitions. All he can do is ask questions, but he receives no answers that would clarify the bureaucratic system into which he has been thrust. Just like existential awareness undermines the entire rational structure of Divine justice, so, too, the alternative hypotheses, the multiple explanations, the different interpretations, and the uncertainty Josef K. experiences, serve to undermine the whole rational structure of the justice system. Josef K. comes to understand the socially constructed, arbitrary, and absurd nature of the justice system, and, justice itself “The truth allegedly resides above the realms of justice and injustice.” This literary analysis will focus on how Josef K.’s experiences in The Trial demonstrate not only the corrupt justice system of the era but also the absurd and futile attempt to seek an arbitrary concept like justice in an existential realm.
KAFKA WORLDVIEW OF JUSTICE IN THE TRIAL
The Trial has an immediate ability to engage the emotions of the reader because the protagonist, Josef K., is an everyman. Not especially ambitious, Josef K. is an ordinary man, a successful bank clerk whose everyday existence is fairly uneventful and leaves him content. We relate to such an average human being even more so, when, on his thirtieth birthday, an Inspector and two guards burst into his rented room and inform him he is under arrest. In the wake of such events as the U.S. Justice Department sanctioning the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez with armed FBI agents from his relatives’ bedroom in the wee hours of the morning, we can immediately relate to the terror, confusion, guilt, and bewilderment of Josef K. However, in Josef K.’s case, there is no written documentation authorizing his arrest, no justifiable cause of action, and a host ...